July 01, 2012

Desperately painting fracking as controversial

The generally favourable verdict on fracking from shale in the latest UK scientific report has brought out the diehard commenters on this Balcombe blog.

Most rebuttal of greenie fanatics is studiously polite. This post isn't. They don't deserve it.

Frank Church has come up with the novel argument that we can't rely on government regulation of shale and fracking:

... we know how effective government regulations have been with banking industry. Are you happy to risk a similar regulatory regime with future water supplies?

I must have missed the proposal to give the Financial Services Authority oversight of shale drilling, rather than leaving it with the bodies who regulate on-shore and off-shore drilling at present.

Desperate stuff, Frank.

Kathryn McWhirter, never tiring of an old canard or two, speaks of

... the beleaguered folk of Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere [who] would happily testify (unless gagged by oil and gas companies because dependent on deliveries of tankered water).

The green tendency loves recycling old stories out of context. How many of these claims still stand up, how many wells are concerned out of how many drilled? Green fanatical dishonesty has to deny context.

Frank - "I am not against fracking in principle" - adds

I just don’t believe the long term risk justify the short term benefits.

How short term does Frank believe the benefits will be? And given how long fracking has been going on, not just in the US, but also in (for instance) Germany, how long is it going to take for his (unstated) long term problems to start manifesting themselves? And remember, we're not just just talking about a well here or there, Frank is claiming there is an intrinsic problem with "shale gas fracking".

Since the US fracking operators are entitled to and refuse to disclose the chemicals used in fracking on commercial grounds, if some of the contaminants came from the fracking chemicals rather than natural sources, how would anyone be able to tell?

More greenie slurs. The "chemicals" are used in minute quantities. Unless the drillers are lying, the "chemicals" are also harmless in the tiny quantities used. And have we not already been told that all "chemicals" will have to be declared?

I deliberately call such people fanatics because nothing could be said that would change their minds. They recycle disproved scares with no context. Perish the thought that they should look at the case in favour of shale drilling - cheaper energy and hence better lives for people around the world, not just in the US but in many poor countries, and less reliance on expensive energy imports from repressive régimes.

The media make this crabbed, baleful perspective easier. They hand reporting on shale issues to environment correspondents, who don't put the economic case for shale drilling. (After all, no one is suggesting drilling shale for fun - it's because it can make cheaper energy widely available.)

Imagine if green arguments had held sway in previous centuries. There could have been no industrial revolution. We would all still be living nasty, brutish, short lives in poverty.